


Solanum non Cthulhu

by DevieKlutz



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Cthulhu Mythos, Gen, Humor, i like tomatoes, tomatoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 17:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19255915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevieKlutz/pseuds/DevieKlutz
Summary: This was originally an assignment for a university class, now that it is over I can publish it here! It is a humorous take on the Cthulhu stories. The main character works at a library and stumbles upon something eldritch and must find a way to set things right.





	Solanum non Cthulhu

I’m not an adventurer. I wanted to be when I was a kid, but I’ve grown out of that. I’m average looking, pudgy, and not a dude, that leaves me out of most adventure stories unless you need a villain or funny sidekick and I’m not into ending the world or being anyone’s punchline. I’m a scifi geek, a fantasy nerd, and all around into anything weird. I spent a summer exploring the woods with my dog as a kid, hoping to find a door to another world because that’s how so many of my favorite stories started. I grew up in libraries, read Harry Potter and Animorphs, and even H.P. Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu”. Of all the stories I read growing up, I guess it is fitting that the one that had a basis in fact was the one with the least magic and the least trauma. Lovecraft had nothing on K. A. Applegate when it comes to horror.  
This entire mess started when I got a job at the local public library. It’s an old building, old enough that they made me sign a waiver form for working in an area with asbestos. And old enough to have a walk-in vault, the kind with a bank vault style door. That vault is where the library stores its oldest, most frail and most difficult to replace books. These books all predated microfiche by several decades, sometimes over a century. Naturally, this is my favorite part of the library, it smells like old books and is always a little cooler than the rest of the building, and there is a distant dripping from the dehumidifying system that can get downright soothing after a while.  
My job is pretty simple, I’m a library page. I sort books, and shelve books, and pull holds, and generally make sure everything is where it belongs. I’ve been given free rein to sort any section I want once my official duties are done, so I explore the vault most evenings. Most of the books are pretty useless to the average person, old reference books with wildly out of date facts, treatises on the mating habits of rare fish, even the bee keeping practices of 18th century Russian peasants. My favorites are the travel journals of the rich and bored, or the explorers and adventurers.   
On a particularly boring and sticky hot Thursday afternoon, I finished my official duties with a full hour and a half to spare and went straight to the vault. I’d found a dusty box lodged between a shelf and one of the vault walls right at the end of my last shift and this was the perfect time to check it out. Because I’m not a total dumbass, I asked permission and wore gloves and a face mask (dusty old boxes could be full of treasure or more asbestos.)   
Inside the box was a small statue, and an extra battered looking travel journal. The statue looked a lot like something for a role-playing game, a little wooden Cthulhu on a pedestal, straight out of Lovecraft’s “Call of Cthulhu” and probably made by a tabletop enthusiast as a personalized touch for his “Cthulhu Wars” game. I set it aside and focused on the travel journal. Dark blue, it looked like it had been much too near the ocean for its own good. The cover was flecked with salt and mud stains, and the edges of the pages were bloated and wrinkled from water damage. I took it to the 60s style secretary desk shoved into a corner of the vault and gently set it down, got as comfortable as a 20-year-old desk chair would allow, and opened the book.  
It read like an incredibly racist journal, but the story inside was nearly identical to “Call of Cthulhu”, the main differences being a few name changes, a few word changes, and a different ending. In this book, Cthulhu appeared, gave chase, and disappeared sure, but the author of this journal insisted that he started having nightmares full of unspeakable images and alien words that would not go away, he ends the book on a suicide note and a warning to leave things alone.   
I admit, I thought it was a weird joke, or maybe someone’s poor attempt at really unfulfilling fanfiction. These things happen, I’ve seen fanfiction of a shark and a tree in a romantic relationship, people will write anything. So I shrugged it off, clocked out, grabbed the statue to look at more closely at home, and left.   
When I got home I put the statue on the table, next to my keys and the ever-growing junk mail stack, gave the dog a thorough petting, changed, had dinner and then got distracted by a book until it was time for the dog’s evening walk. I noticed the statue when I grabbed my keys on the way out and mentally shrugged and promised to look at it in the morning light. The rest of my evening went normally, and I went to bed tired but content.  
I had nightmares that night. Oozing tentacles, hissing voices, strange, musty smells, and strange flickering lighting invaded my dreams. I was left tired and cranky by morning. I’ve read enough sci-fi and fantasy that I didn’t dismiss the nightmares right off the bat, but I didn’t think it was anything supernatural in origin, not then. “Just that journal and the statue getting to me.” I said as I filled the dog’s Kong toy up with treats to distract her while I cleaned up around the townhouse and got a look at the statue in good lighting.   
I sat in my postage stamp of a yard with the statue in my hands and took a few moments to relax. I smelled the warm summer air with the sweetness of drying grass mixed into it, and the sharp smell of my tomato plants as an end note. The warm sun felt good on my skin, restorative after my nightmares, I closed my eyes and sighed with pleasure, before opening them again and getting to work. The statue was maybe as big as a paperback book, carved from a fairly lightweight wood unlike the one from “Call of Cthulhu” and surprisingly lightweight.   
I turn it around this way and that, looking for a maker’s signature or mark. It is well polished and lightly varnished. Smooth to the touch and warm from my hands and the sun. The base of the statue has two words carved into the bottom.   
“NON SOLANUM. Huh, that’s Latin, I’ve seen enough in botany and the old vault. Let’s see… non is no. Solanum is… oh I know this. It’s a plant.” I got my phone out and started a search, muttering to myself about Latin names and why bother writing in Latin if you live in the 21st century. “Probably some over-achiever made this thing for his LARP group or something. Ok. Solanum. Hmmm ‘nightshade’. Someone carved ‘no nightshade’ on the bottom of a Cthulhu statue. That’s a new one.” I looked up at my tomato plants, the fruit would be ripe any day now. “Well, those are nightshade too. Should I keep a few around to ward off nightmares and creepy crawlies?” I laughed and went to put the little statue away.   
The rest of my day off went well. I took the dog for a hike, got groceries, cooked a week’s worth of meals, and read before bed. But the nightmares returned. More oozing tentacles, sweet, rotting smells, and shrieks of fear kept me tossing and turning all night. By the time my alarm went off the next morning I was drenched in sweat. I groaned as I got up, stumbled to the shower, and half slept through my morning routine. By the time my lunch was packed I was more or less awake but very miserable.   
I decided to pick a good dozen tomatoes to bring in to the library. I’d stick a few in the lounge for anyone who wanted one, and keep the rest near me, just in case. They were nice tomatoes this year. Not particularly big, but a very bright red and bound to be sweet and juicy.   
My shift went by in a blur, with several coworkers thanking me for the tomatoes, and several patrons asking for assistance finding books. I got done with my official duties with only half an hour to spare, just enough time to put the statue back in the box and shove it in a new corner to collect dust for another fifty plus years.   
The vault smelled a little more musty than usual, and the dripping from the dehumidifier sounded louder, and somehow more frequent, it gave me the creeps. The nightmares had really started to affect me. I walked to the old desk, grabbed the journal, and hurried to the corner I’d left the box in. There was the box, just as I’d left it. I kneeled and gently put the statue and book back in. As I got up again, the already dim lights of the vault flickered and seemed to grow dimmer. The air began to smell more like decay, and it seemed to become more humid in the vault.   
By the time I had straightened completely I could see that something was coming out of the wall behind the box. It had tentacles. I wanted to laugh. I’d read so much scifi, I’d listened to Welcome to Nightvale for years now, I’d always looked for doors where they did not belong. And when one finally showed up it was the eldritch god-monster that came through. It was so unfair, it had to be real.   
I backed away, slowly, not knowing if running would make it focus on me faster. And nearly tripped over my messenger bag, now full of just a handful of tomatoes, my wallet, keys, and phone. I grabbed it and slung the strap over my shoulder, reaching for something, anything to try to defend myself with. Cthulhu stepped all the way through the unseen portal. He was big, but somehow still fit into the vault. He was a bit slimy, but mostly just resembled the little statue.   
I don’t know what went through my head, I threw the first thing my hand caught. Up flew my phone, in a perfect arch. It bopped Cthulhu squarely on what should have been his nose and was actually the top of his tentacles, clattering to the floor at his feet. He looked at me then, and I was surprised to find that I hadn’t gone mad like the stories said. I was just a whole heck of a lot more scared. “Oh. Crap.”  
I bolted for the door, and reached into my bag again, this time coming up with a tomato. “Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcraaaap!” I chanted as I ran. I slowed enough to turn and throw the tomato at the eldritch god and heard a splat followed by a monstrous scream. I continued to run and throw tomatoes, which made loud ‘SPLAT’ sounds as they hit the monster or the shelves of old, delicate books. I got to the door of the vault just as I ran out of tomatoes and realized at the same time that Cthulhu was no longer behind me. I ran out and closed the door behind me to be safe.   
“Uh huh. So, you are saying you defaced 30 books in the vault because a giant, fictional monster was chasing you?” asked the skeptical librarian a few minutes later.  
“Yes. I mean no. I mean. He isn’t fictional. He just really hates tomatoes for some reason” I told the librarian and the security guard behind her.  
“Right. Well, you’re fired. I’m sorry, you’ve been a great worker for us, but I cannot let this weird… prank of yours slide. You’ve caused way too much damage!” said the librarian.   
A short time later I was back in my townhouse, adding extra fertilizer to my tomato plants’ pots. I’ll be keeping some on hand always from now on.


End file.
